A Question Less
by awesomehatyougotthere
Summary: Set after Scorpia rising, Alex tells his new world exactly how close they are to a murderer. Psychological, spoilers for Eagle Strike, SLASH, Alex/Yassen implied.


** Hello once again! The awesome hat is back! **

**This is just a one-shot, but I've been getting quite a few requests for more... you never know XD**

**I hope you enjoy this new piece of mine!**

* * *

6 months ago, the words _vacant_ and _ghostly_ would not have remotely been the ideal words in which to describe Alex Rider.

6 Months ago, Alex was a confident, witty personality- the crucial player on any boys' team, the number one heart flutterer of any girl who'd ever met him.

But that was six months ago, and that was before Cairo.

Initially, Alex thought his migration to America a godsend, a catharsis, a final escape from the hand of death and his many devilish fiends.

He finally slipped back into the rhythm of the school grind, the wheels of his mind clunking and resisting but finally whirring as he forced himself to accept a pattern into his life, spinning and retracting with the perpetual ebb and flow of dishevelled, oblivious students.

When all was said and done, loose ends were left untied, and that had never sat well with Alex.

'_Routine, is one thing that __**will**__ get you killed'_

Alex proved popular in his new school; in much the same way as before- only with the newfound ability of making women swoon simply by speaking. Yet Scorpia's Rising had taken more of a toll than anyone might have realised; even the most withered of false smiles going unnoticed by even the most perceptive of nerds.

He couldn't speak. Not really. What he said now wasn't speaking; it was talking, rambling, spouting, bull-shitting. All the random jittering, bickering over nothing as though it were everything- who fucked who, who said what, what went how- mindless, useless and utterly thought-numbing nothingness; noise.

He couldn't speak. He was left in a swarm of gossip-hungry vultures, lips still sewn together by a seal of paper bearing the three, muting words- Official Secrets Act.

Thus, he couldn't speak; he had nothing to say. His old life was locked behind that envelope and a new one had yet to develop.

Feeling his eyes focus back to the hazardless lesson he was in, Alex discovered himself deposited in a Personal Development class, miraculously located by his feet while his mind dwelled elsewhere.

Instinctively, he sought out various escape routes, scanning the fields of corn beyond the panes of glass for anything that shouldn't have been, anything that would break him free from the chains of monotonous, wasted normality.

Had life before MI6 always been _this_ dull?

Spectating a petty scrap, Alex vacantly eyed the incoming gulls, snapping over spilt fries left over from lunch, absent-mindedly entertaining the impulse to throw himself out of the window and hysterically laugh as they picked at his shattered bones.

"Alex," a teacher drawled, shoving a flabbed hip to the side, expectantly glaring, sternly challenging the distracted blonde.

Satisfied for the most part, Alex drew his observation to a close, realising with a pang of foolishness that everyone had positioned their chairs in a circle, central to the room.

"I'm glad you've finally decided to catch up with us." She mocked as he awkwardly shuffled to join them.

"Wonderful," she began, "Now, I'd like you all to participate in a discussion over the topic: How close are we, have we been, to a murderer?"

At this, Alex internally keeled over and died.

"We'll be going round the circle, and I'm not taking 'I dunno' for an answer." Rudely imitating her teenage colleagues, the teacher set the discussion off in a counter-clockwise fashion.

"How do you know," a much-disliked curly-haired boy chipped in as a response to an earlier proposition, "that you didn't walk past a killer in the street last week?"

"Last week?" A busty girl spat "mate, that is literally what Jess said two seconds ago, use your fat head, will ya!? And besides, what about this week? What about today? What if, I dunno, your mum's in the army. If she's had to shoot someone, is she still a murderer?"

The teacher nodded profusely in approval of the question, waving the blatant bullying to one side. Silence descended as the students began to either contemplate or fall asleep.

Alex however was probably just one clench away from shredding all the ligaments in his hands, his face pale and his eyes downcast, shivering. One less question, perhaps, would have made the difference between Alex making it through the day, and Alex throwing a table.

"How do we know," The boy announced abruptly, "there isn't one in this room right now?"

Alex erupted.

He rose, silently, malevolently, rage and utter despair a turbulent hurricane in his usually lifeless honey-brown eyes.

"_How do we know?"_

His fists clawed deep gashes into the palms of his hands, tremors rocking his body as Alex finally threw fire and ash into the face of the world.

"How do 'we' fucking know?!"

"Alex-"

"No! You don't know, you don't have a bloody clue! But I do, I have a crystal fucking clear view of my- and your- exact proximity to a murderer!

"Alex." The teacher warned, stubbornly still pretending she had control over this distorted, shredded image of a boy.

"Shut it." The blonde fumed,

"You asked how close I'd been to a killer? Well, I'll tell you! Oh, for the love of life, I will tell you!

"I spoke directly to him, I waved a vial of lethal bio-chemicals in his face, I held his hand as he saved my life for the first time, I watched him sleep, I had tea with him, he shielded me from bullets and the detonation of various nuclear weapons,"

Alex's resolve cracked with every event listed off, gasping between reluctant sobs.

"I've had his lips over mine; I have _his blood_, in _my_ fucking veins! I've had him inside me in more ways than one and held him in my arms as he took his last…last…"

Alex broke.

Tears, whiplashed fragments of sheer pain slashed across his face, his class staring, mortified, terrified, the teacher finally having closed her ugly mouth.

" I wish," he choked, " I wish, so badly, that he were alive..!

"But, do you, do _you_ know how close you are to a murderer?" Alex spat.

"Don't you know?

"You're looking at one."

* * *

The police arrived. But the gulls already had their meal.


End file.
